Joe L. Read, Montana Legislative Candidate Bearing the Ballot Label “Constitutional” Polls 42.8% in Two-Candidate Race

Posted on by November 12, 2014
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On November 4, Joe L. Read polled 42.8% of the vote for Montana state house, district 15. He got on the ballot by petition, and he chose the ballot label “Constitutional.” He is in sympathy with the Constitution Party, but since the Constitution Party is not organized in Montana, he felt it would be presumptuous to use “Constitution” as his label.

Read was in a two-person race with the incumbent Democrat. The 15th district straddles the continental divide near the Canadian border. Here is a link to the Montana election returns.

Read was elected to the Montana legislature in 2010 as a Republican, but was defeated for re-election in 2012. Thanks to Michael for this news.

New York Times Editorial, “The Worst Voter Turnout in 72 Years”

Posted on by November 12, 2014
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The New York Times’ lead editorial in the November 12 paper edition is “The Worst Voter Turnout in 72 Years”. Here is a link to the editorial. The editorial contains a graph, showing turnout back to 1900. The figures are from Professor Michael McDonald, who calculates the number of voters, as a percentage of the number of persons who were eligible to register and vote. In other words, the percentages do not relate to how many registered voters there are, just the potential electorate if everyone did register.

Turnout was low in the 1920’s because women had won the right to register to vote, but many women, initially, did not feel comfortable registering or voting. Turnout was low in 1942 because back then, no one could register into a state without having lived in that state for a year, and a large proportion of the population moved during 1942, into states with factories that started producing armaments, or went overseas because of service in the armed forces.

Massachusetts United Independent Party Launches Voter Registration Drive

Posted on by November 12, 2014
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The United Independent Party of Massachusetts became ballot-qualified on November 4, when it polled over 3% for a statewide office (for Governor, for Evan Falchuk). However, it will go off the ballot in November 2016 unless it polls 3% in that election as well, and the only statewide offices up in 2016 in Massachusetts is President.

However, the party can also remain ballot-qualified if its statewide registration rises to 1% of the state total. According to this news story, the party is already starting to work on its registration drive. The 1% registration alternative to obtaining or retaining party status has only existed since 1991, and it has never been used.

The story says that the current voter registration form on the Massachusetts state government web page is so obsolete, it still shows the name of another minor party (which the story doesn’t name, but which probably refers to the Green-Rainbow Party) which lost its status two years ago. This part of the story seems not to be correct. Here is a link to the Massachusetts registration form, showing only the Democratic and Republican Parties. New forms, when they are produced, will list four parties, including the Green-Rainbow Party, which regained its party status by polling over 3% last year for some of the less important statewide offices.

At the October 2014 tally, the United Independent Party only had 83 registered voters. It will need approximately 45,000.